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Academia's 1%

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Re: Academia's 1%

#51

Post by skosuri »

east2west wrote: post #46
impendia wrote: post #35

I am a mathematics professor at an R1 university who has been directly involved in faculty searches for four years in a row. This article is quite mistaken, at least from the perspective of an academic mathematician. (Maybe it is more accurate in the humanities.) (1) This year, two of the three candidates whom we interviewed got their Ph.D.'s at non-top-20 universities. We made offers to both of them. One of them tur…

I know many biomedical faculty members in Stanfod pay their postdocs below NIH suggested levels, just because they can. I would caution people of survivor's bias. Only saints promote people with strong different options and who act on their options. Academia is full of strong egos.

Really, that is surprising, because it is disallowed. Stanford, like all UC's where I am at, have salary minimums. Stanford's minimum is higher than the NIH levels [1]. It would be hard to pay someone under the table, so I don't see how this is really occurring.

[1] http://postdocs.stanford.edu/handbook/salary.html

Re: Academia's 1%

#52

Post by hga »

east2west wrote: post #46
impendia wrote: post #35

I am a mathematics professor at an R1 university who has been directly involved in faculty searches for four years in a row. This article is quite mistaken, at least from the perspective of an academic mathematician. (Maybe it is more accurate in the humanities.) (1) This year, two of the three candidates whom we interviewed got their Ph.D.'s at non-top-20 universities. We made offers to both of them. One of them tur…

I know many biomedical faculty members in Stanfod pay their postdocs below NIH suggested levels, just because they can. I would caution people of survivor's bias. Only saints promote people with strong different options and who act on their options. Academia is full of strong egos.

Is there any field with a greater supply/demand imbalance than biology/biomedical?

There seemed to be a big imbalance in the late 1970s and through the 1980s (sic), and I gather it's only gotten worse as the big and successful push for cheaper science labor began in the '80s.

Re: Academia's 1%

#53

Post by hga »

skosuri wrote: post #51
east2west wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know many biomedical faculty members in Stanfod pay their postdocs below NIH suggested levels, just because they can. I would caution people of survivor's bias. Only saints promote people with strong different options and who act on their options. Academia is full of strong egos.

Really, that is surprising, because it is disallowed. Stanford, like all UC's where I am at, have salary minimums. Stanford's minimum is higher than the NIH levels [1]. It would be hard to pay someone under the table, so I don't see how this is really occurring. [1] http://postdocs.stanford.edu/handbook/salary.html

Hmmm. Unless Stanford and the NIH turn a blind eye to it---this is trivial to audit---this could not be happening without the faculty getting kickbacks.

Re: Academia's 1%

#54

Post by UmDieWelt »

forthefuture wrote: post #18
UmDieWelt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First-rate people hire people that went to the same group of first-rate schools they did. Also, why wouldn't second-rate people hire second-raters? According to that quote, no one hires second-raters. It really doesn't make much sense.

If you're the best you can tell when someone's the best. If you're pretty good you might be able to tell if someone is pretty good, and definitely cannot tell if they're the best. If you're not that good you'll take anybody. Seems pretty straight forward.

Except people who aren't the best aren't idiotic rubes who can't spot talent. I'm terrible at basketball but I can see that Lebron James is good.

Re: Academia's 1%

#55

Post by hga »

Dewie wrote: post #28
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You could read all of this as just more evidence that the "system" works: the good schools tend to be enriched for good graduate students, who then tend to get a lot of the tenure-track jobs. Then, I think we have to continue reasoning, why do those grad-students grow up and find they can only acquire tenure-track jobs by jumping to lower-tier institutions, where their own academic "children" will be considered infe…

Why can't everyone who joins the military attain the rank of colonel or higher eventually?

On the other hand, when you become an officer you'd have to be grossly ignorant not to know about the (US) military "up or out" policy. One complaint here that seems to be legit is that students are not told how poor their job prospects are in raw numbers. Now, some of that is no doubt to avoid discouragement, you don't know if X student will later shine, or burn out, but....

Re: Academia's 1%

#56

Post by themoonbus »

rayiner wrote: post #9

I don't get the thing about cost of living. New Haven is not expensive, neither is NJ commutable to Princeton, nor Philadelphia. Chicago's cost of living is right at the national average. Durham's is probably below. Etc.

Yeah, I thought that was a strange statement in an otherwise solid article. I lived in the Boston area for 2 years on a grad school stipend. It covered my basic needs, and I was even able to put away some money.

Yes, if you're single, you'll probably need roommates, but it is definitely doable.

Re: Academia's 1%

#57

Post by ejstronge »

viscanti wrote: post #50
dpweb wrote: post #10

This was the best article, not just regarding academia, but describing the issue of privilege and its destructive effect on the "american dream" - that I think I have seen since the 2009 crash. We have a controversy about wealth inequality and it seems that would be a natural result of a cycle of power simply being passed down generation by generation. I think the opposite of that, a meritocracy, is what we want - bu…

I think there are two distinct issues here. The first is that it seems like university students select schools and classes based on the academic background of their professors (having a professor from Harvard seems to be more prestigious than having one from most state schools). For many students (especially before they ever take a class), they don't know enough about most of the professors to evaluate them (so the e…

I disagree with you on both counts:

1. Perhaps your university background is different, but I haven't ever had the impression that a particular professor's class is preferred to another due to the first professor's educational pedigree, in undergraduate classes. Such classes often conform to general topics and there is insufficient variability for two professors to directly compete for students.

Undergraduate students bring in the most money but, as I mention above, aren't really involved in selecting one instructor over another; indeed, undergraduates are often taught by graduate students. If the cash-generating undergraduates are cut off from professors, it stands to reason that undergraduates' opinions aren't important in hiring professors.

Graduate courses are, of course, different. First, graduate students often cost money (they often receive a stipend). But getting into graduate school isn't as meritocratic as it may seem, which both relates to the OP's point and to my second disagreement.

2. I don't believe that the OP ever says that graduate schools don't admit students based on merit. Instead, she gives an example of how a strong candidate might prefer a less-prestigious university to a more prestigious one (cost of living).

Re: Academia's 1%

#58

Post by themoonbus »

PaulHoule wrote: post #4
jvehent wrote: post #2

The same rule holds true for jobs in the private sector: work for a high profile company (Google, Apple, Facebook, ...) and you will find doors open everywhere. Getting there in the first place is the real challenge.

One difference is that the private sector gives second chances and academia doesn't.

Or, to put it another way, there are far more paths to success in the private sector than in academia. People change careers, move upwards, downwards, sideways, etc.

Academia is much less forgiving.

Re: Academia's 1%

#59

Post by lordnacho »

There is a signalling/game mechanic that explains this sort of thing:

1) You have some rare ability that is distributed unevenly (Research skill, football skill) 2) There's certain brands that are imperfectly connected to the distribution of ability (Harvard, Man Utd) 3) You can hire a guy who looks to have the ability minus the brand, and he'll be cheap (Easier to lure, lower weekly salary). Once in a while, someone does this for a brand and the guy is "in". 4) Hire the wrong guy without the brand and your head is on the block. Gotta publish/win championships. 5) Hire the wrong guy with the brand, and you can point at many other coaches who did the same.

So what's going to happen? Anyone who is obviously good will get in no matter what, but the bar is extra high. And a fair number of obviously good people will also get the brand name. Everyone who is good but not great needs the brand.

Just looking at the numbers in the academia game, it looks very hard. Committees need to justify their choices, and they are choosing a very small subset of the applicants. Getting a dud on a team of say 7 researchers could be costly. You'll get some anyway (there's a HN article today about how hard it is to interview people) but you can at least pretend you did the conservative thing. Also, with a very small size the top spaces are reserved for special talents (Terence Tao article today as well). If you're on a shortlist with TT, you're not getting that job.

Re: Academia's 1%

#60

Post by microcolonel »

projectileboy wrote: post #43
williamstein wrote: post #5

[Disclaimer: I'm part of that 1% she is talking about, since I'm tenured faculty in Mathematics at University of Washington, with "Harvard" on my resume due to my first job being there. http://wstein.org ] The author says: "The most prestigious universities – the Ivy League, University of Chicago, Stanford University, the University of California system – tend to lie in the most expensive parts of the country. Even w…

I don't necessarily disagree with anything you've said, but there's a tone here and in Hacker News in general that bothers me - a fierce meritocracy that doesn't seem to have a scrap of empathy for anyone who doesn't fit into the top 1%. So if the rest of us lazy slobs in the 99% are unworthy to get into the best grad schools or Y Combinator, I'm to assume we should just find ourselves a quiet spot in the midwest in…

The fact that your first alternative to succeeding is giving up entirely, I don't see how you could make it to the midwest with enough money to buy the gun you'll kill yourself with.

Resources; time, energy, attention; are limited. If you allocate resources to less-than-best people, you get less-than-best results, most of the time.

If these people are the kind of weak, selfish pricks who think that the world owes them a world-class experience just for existing, they'll give up half-way through the most difficult thing they've ever done(if they ever start), and your investment in them will be lost forever, without outcomes.

That kind of investment crashes your economy, and in the long run gets your species killed.

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